D3 Witch Doctor Fresh Level 70 Guide Season 20 | 2.6.8

Decided to get Haedrig’s gift this season on Witch Doctor? Well, we’re here to help you get it in the most effective way possible with our Fresh 70 Witch Doctor Guide. Build progression will be placed per chapter to aid in acquiring the free set this season, which can also help in your character’s progression.

Important Note: Crafting Reaper’s Wraps RIGHT NOW is a significant boost for such little effort. The recipe drops from any torment Malthael. While not HUGE for WD, it helps.

S18 Season of Triune and YOU

In S18, the seasonal bonus DIRECTLY BENEFITS any character, at any point in their progression – which is great seeing as this is a “Fresh Level 70” guide.

A chance to gain an “occulus ring” of any one of the following: Damage, CDR, or RCR, is a godly bonus. While RCR isn’t so hot, and CDR depends on build – ANYONE CAN BENEFIT FROM DOUBLE DAMAGE!

Luckily, this makes our leveling and progression journey a little easier this time around.

Fresh 70 Witch Doctor: Getting the Free Set!

Click below to reveal the instructions you need for each step:

IMPORTANT: Setting up!

Fresh 70 Witch Doctor Items needed: As you progress just be aware of what you’re gonna need. A little care goes a long way. INT+VIT is a great start, rolling out useless stats like resource cost reduction and life regen. REROLLING YELLOWS IS PURE VALUE!

WD’s NEED ARMOR, NOT ALLRES!

Since our main stat (INT) does NOT GIVE ARMOR – it gives Resists! This is great, but we lose an important piece of our defensive stack. Long story short, an Int char should roll Armor on: Chest, Legs, Boots, Belt, and Shoulders(early on). ALSO REMOVE ALLRES on your gear for better stats.

2H Mace: You’ll be using this for a while. A good 2H mace will carry you, and you’ll need something really bad ass to consider replacing this. INT goes without saying, LIFE PER HIT is SUPER LEGIT on weapon for WD’s.

Life per hit: If you can’t get it on your weapon, get it SOMEWHERE else. Why? We abuse Leeching Beasts to blaze through the seasonal journey. Many slots roll LpH so you’re bound to run into it. OK, fine I’ll list ’em. WPN, HELM, RING, NECK, WRIST, HAND.

Belt is a huge source of defense as well. INT VIT ARMOR LIFE > RES, you can get 4 of 5.

Fetish Army% (and Gargantuan%) roll on shoulders and chest.

Zunimassa has no shoulder piece! So you may as well roll a good one with INT VIT (Skill%) Armor, or something like that.

Gems:ARMOR GEMS FOR BODY/LEGS/Other basic sockets are AMAZING (Rubies or Emeralds give ARMOR) Amethyst on weapon can be a great source ofLife per Hit.

Elemental% for Bracer & Necklace: LISTEN UP! This varies wildly depending on what your build is. Also, is it your bracer for RIGHT NOW? or is it your ENDGAME bracer? I won’t take responsibility for ruined items. Personally, I’m going for Poison% (for Darts).

SAVE YOUR BEST 1-HANDER & MOJO. As a backup. Why? Let’s say you get a great Mojo – you have no 1 hander to use it with! And vice versa. Just a precaution you should note.

Don’t forget to take Templar and a pet with you! Helps with your health and regen, and the gold collection from monsters (need this to level up your crafters!)

Ultimately, REROLL OFF USELESS STATS like…

ALLRES– you have too much of it. Go for Armor

Life Regen – trash tier stat. Not impactful at all.

CDR and RCR– too much is not needed, especially in unrefined early builds.

ASPDis more for endgame tuning….

Take GREAT STATS such as…

INT & VIT – your core stats. It’s hard to get too much

ARMOR– is SUPER IMPORTANT for your defenses.

Any CRIT STAT – can’t go wrong with these.

Life Per Hit – is very useful early on. Great rolls on temporary items.

It’s not about getting the perfect stats right now – but getting “good ones”, while avoiding useless ones.

Customizing Skill Binding

If you’re not allowed to put two skills on your bar because they’re from the same category – FEAR NOT! This isn’t a bug or a permanent in-game restriction. You simply have to CHECK ON ELECTIVE MODE, via Esc > Options > Gameplay > Elective Mode!

Binding Force Move to Mouse wheel up & down is a value change that every player should make IMO. It prevents misclicks and skill misfires, and forces you to move to where otherwise an enemy might be.

Season Journey Chapters Table

Here’s an overview of what you should accomplish per chapter for this season. Shift+J in game to check.

Due to the power of basic WD’s, we can be greedy enough to place many speedy elements into our build. A really basic, efficient killer this one is.

Difficulty: As per our reco, we suggested to level up your Witch Doctor inHard mode. This holds true as you try to complete the seasonal journey, most of it, at least. The only times you have to increase difficulty is when its requiring you to (Neph on Expert).

Season Journey Chapters 1 & 2: entries here are pretty basic and self-explanatory. No need for us to delve into this too much. What I do to make it easier for me, I’ll just wait til I get to level 60-65, start a a full round of bounties making sure I tag all the bosses I need to obliterate for these 2 chapters.

That’s just my strategy but, of course, this will be easy if you take into consideration the things we discussed in the “Setting Up” Tab earlier.

Season Journey Chapter 3: Getting the 4 piece set

No change to build! We can still be greedy, but defense will be a problem soon. Life per Hit and Armor… don’t care how many times I remind ya.

Difficulty: If you still have to get bounty caches, complete them in Hard Mode. I’m sure you want to complete this as fast as you can; if that’s the case, why make it harder for you? Done? Increase difficulty to Master and do the following:

Beat these on Master difficulty:

Nephalem Rift – just complete this. Stack up on defensives if needed.

Kill Butcher – Act I, Halls of Agony Level 3

Kill Urzael – Act V, Westmarch Heights

The rest of the entries are just NPC interactions…. Finish these, get your 2nd set of Haedrig’s Gift from the mail and let’s go through the next chapter’s entries.

Keywardens maps have a key icon next to the waypoint. Purple arrows point you to their location after a short while once you’re in their respective map.

GR20: Will tackle this in the next clicky. But before that, check if GR20 is already unlocked for you. If not, do a few GR runs to open up this tier. You can also level up your first legendary gem that drops from here (Hello, Bane of the Powerful).

“Hey I have a legendary that can really help me out: what skill do I remove?” If looking at the above, removing Poison Darts is your best bet for build adjustments. If you need a mana passive, use Rush of Essence since we spam Haunt.

FIX PARAGONS: INT| Crit| All Res | LpH

Practically the same build with a little more defense – the ONLY possible avenue of loss is dying a lot – EVEN THEN it is VERY UNLIKELY YOU WILL LOSE. For a “reference”, here were my stats and what I tested with:

Offense (sheet): 300k~

Toughness (sheet): 7.7M~

Recovery (sheet): 550k~

NO ‘special’ legendaries aside from the 4PC Zunimassa’s Haunt.

NO Pylons taken.

NO Legendary Gems.

NO Cubed powers used.

Remaining Time: 2-5m

Defense is well taken care of: as long as you have at least 1 Life per Hit roll for your Dogs, and “some” Armor rolls. Zuni 4pc is a workhorse in this regard.

DAMAGE IS YOUR MAIN ISSUE! Annoyingly, this build kills pretty slowly. The addition of Poison Dart is “KEY” if you’re attempting this with the same restraints as I did. Spirit Walk, while be sorely missed in the rift, is the only skill we can let go.

This is an anti-RNG setup, but you’ll get a close call. If you heavily neglected your gear, you will fail. You’ll clear with anywhere between 1 and 3 minutes I guess.

Torment V should be your new “minimum” to farm – don’t worry, it’ll jump after the next step – getting your legendary gems!

A quick review before proceeding…

As you’re proceeding with the next steps, keep these important things in mind!

Spenders

Keep in mind if you have a passive, item or rune which removes mana cost – it is still considered a spender BUT A BUTTON MUST BE PRESSED for it to trigger. Meaning things like Wormwood won’t work.

Haunt, and its various runes, is REALLY EFFECTIVE – i know it sounds really bad when you think about it (slow application) but it just work, but the spirit “passing to a new guy” doesn’t seem to work? Need confirmation.

You have to flex your creativity a bit – experiment! Many random drops might help you find some weird in-between setup that’s best for now.

Darts

The Darts build requires a lot of items. Even if we don’t use Gargs later on, Short Man’s Finger is a midgame “filler” that really boosts you up since “getting the ENTIRE DARTS SETUP” is difficult.

Zunimassa’s has no shoulder piece! So you may as well roll a good one with INT VIT (Skill%) Armor, or something like that.

Life per Hit with Leeching Beasts is OP. Rolled on weapons (amulet) or temporarily, a Purple on weapon. Leeching Beasts may have to be dropped for temporary build evolutions from time to time – but remember that it is one of your best methods of sustainability.

Belt is a massive toughness boost. INT VIT ARMOR LIFE RES, in that order.

Save your best one-hander and mojo – in case you get a great legendary one! It would suck picking up Sacred Harvester with no Mojo to use, and vice versa.

Getting the “correct” stats has a much higher impact vs.
getting the “perfect” stats, for now.

Gaining Power!

It’s time to get beefier. The easiest way is Legendary Gems, and obtaining key items.

Legendary Gems

This is the easiest way to gain power simply because acquiring them has little to no RNG. Getting 3 of your best gems will increase your power dramatically in a short time span.

Click on the tabs to see Zunimassa “Big 3” gems, and “others”.

WD Zunimassa 6 Fresh 70: Big 3 GemsOther gems?

Get these three to L25 ASAP:

Bane of the Powerful is a great gem to 25 first. Why? Its power maxes out at L25, and only improves in duration after that. Perfect for our next goal of “farming fast”.

Enforcer is a no brainer. “Increase pet damage”. Sink all the points you can here.

Right now you might want to use a defensive option for the third gem, since you will be doing more than enough damage. Esoteric Alteration or Moratorium comes to mind! However, your whole setup simple fails if you don’t have Leeching Beasts online.

Any other gems worth it?

Bane of the Trapped is a generic DPS gem that may be difficult to have consistently up right now, but that’s easily fixable down the line. This replaces Powerful down the line.

Efficient farming and powering of gems will get your top 3 gems to 25 in no time! Just do Greater Rifts until 34 to ensure a level 25 gem.

With 3 of your best gems at L25 – try much higher Torment levels (VI+ at least). DEFENSE BECOMES A SERIOUS PROBLEM from here on out!

Playing the Build & Adjustments

Now that you have the base “power level” of your 6 set and gems, let’s take a short time to review How to Play the Build. Here’s some really basic tips for playing Zunimassa to help you as you progress into higher difficulties. It’s by no means comprehensive, but still helpful.

Also, as you progress and get items, your build may have a weak point here and there that you can patch up given the simple skill, rune, and passive changes listed below.

Use Armor gems on your gear (Rubies, Emeralds).
It REALLY helps early on!

First, I will talk about Witch Doctor’s main defenses (both of which I recommend). 1) Armor viaSoul Harvest-Languish. It won’t work well if your base Armor rating is CRAP, so get those Armor rolls going. 2) Leeching Beasts has been mentioned enough, but again, the self-healing is insane.

Swampland Attunement is king of defensive passives. Pickup radius is relevant for WD’s if you haven’t noticed. Note that this doesn’t increase lightning and arcane resist.

Increasing your INT increases your Resists. So augments and gearing up is a huge factor. In terms of your actual kit, there’s not much practical defenses you can gain…

Mobility and speed simply make farming faster. If you’re slightly newer, you may underestimate just how important this is!

Fierce Loyalty is too good. Brainless movespeed increase, and it’s HUGE. Try to fit it into the build whenever you can!

Spirit Walk-Severance: is the basic Mobility skill/rune. The massive distance you cover with this is already amazing. (It’s already in the build).

Grave Injusticeis fantastic with the build. You will always have Spirit Walk up after each chunk of mob dies. It’s a great passive in general.

Soul Harvest-Soul to Waste: Again, a low impact rune selection for a huge boost in Mobility. Always keep this in mind if you have no problem surviving – as sacrificing the Languish rune is pretty harsh.

Mask of Jeram and Tasker and Theo are two of the most “Brainless equip and forget”, “no build adjustments”, “just plain good” items a pet doctor can get. Comes from helms and gloves, respectively. As such Helms and Gloves are up first.

I suppose Belts are next. Belt of Transcendence is amazing! It’s better than Fetish Sycophant passive (sadly, it doesn’t stack – you don’t get 30!). Keep note that, while it doesn’t stack, it WORKS ALONG with your passive, so it might be a good idea to keep both up at the same time. There’s other fillers here like Goldwrap.

I might as well remind you now about the “golden pair” from bounties –Ring of Royal Grandeur: is from ACT I bounties.Avarice from Act III bounties, for speedfarming – might as well list it down here.

Using Death’s Breath – Rare to legendary:

Upgrade Ceremonial Knife! There are many ceremonial knives that you want. The main two are: Sacred Harvester – a generic boost for “all” WD builds. Not only is it an absurd damage boost, it gives us a little more Armor from Languish. For the future you’ll want to bag Dagger of Dartsin the dart build! There are other nice fillers along the way.

Bridging to the End-game

So you skipped a whole chunk of the powering up phase with the free set. Now what? Like I always say, “Speedfarming first before pushing GR’s”. So, convert what you have NOW to be as speedfarmy as possible, first.

Right after I posted about pig sticker I got the wormwood lol. That staff is so good I HAD to unequip it to complete the set dungeon. It would kill everything before I could do anything lol. Its gonna be hard to let this staff go.

Brilliant guide! Perfect and exactly what I needed for the new ladder.
Only suggestion would be advice to slowly transition into what looks like the most powerful build this season, which seems to be Jade Harvester.

I am using Z6 and have tried to follow this guide as closely as possible but I just can’t seem to get my fetishes up past 8. I am using haunt and I spam it liberally and move around and stuff. I tried acid rain but it just doesn’t work for me that well because it is not fire and forget like haunt (targeting issues) and I run out of mana so quickly and then stand there twiddling my thumbs. So not sure what I am missing because I am trying different things but since my gems got to 25 I can’t get past GR40 (T7) in time and that feels like I am behind the curve.

Advice? Suggestions? Appreciation in advance and thanx for the bitchin’ guide 🙂

last time I played diablo 3 was at the auction house disaster.Now I am back,taking a break from overwatch and the game completely change,without thinking about my build its already enormous,You helped me a lot and I really appreciate the time and effort you put on this.
Thank you very much

Am I using acid cloud wrong if I am not getting Fetishes up to the passive max? I can do it easily with haunt but that is also much easier to spam.
Love yalls guides btw, third season using them and it is always great.

You’re absolutely correct and that’s why I mentioned both of those skills. Fetishes are much easier to gather with Haunt compared to Acid Rain. But alas, the Haunt coverage is pretty bad. Honestly there’s no way around suffering usability issues of Z6 early on.

Yes, you get them up faster. Also, in the eventual Darts build keep in mind that the belt only triggers off SPENDERS. The Passive works with all attacks. It can be suboptimal to have them both, but in the early game – them working in tandem can be a load off your mind.

Thank you so much for this guidea. It helped me out a ton. I am new to seasonal and Diablo 3. I am confused when you say ‘GR 38 is enough to 25 a gem.’ Does that mean I need to get to GR38 to get a gem up to 25? Thanks again.

You can now start farming for items (getting ancient legendaries, death’s breath, materials for kanai-ing). Long term goals are up to you really. You can aim to climb the WD leaderboard, complete the season journey (shift+J) to get stash tab/s or just complete achievements (Y). It depends on you.

This guide is to help you somehow beef up your fresh 70 witch doctor, with or without the free set, so you could go clear higher torments asap. Once you’ve completed the above, you can even try other Witch doctor set builds or classes.